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About this project

WHAT IS KAIJU COMBAT?

Kaiju Combat is the final word in giant-monster battle games. And the first step in changing how video games get made. It features:

1-4 player battles in awesome environments.

Frequent releases of new content (monsters, stories, game modes) which can be added to your existing game, or purchased as stand-alone products! We also have a 4-monster "Kaijuland Combat" product which will always be FREE to download! (details below)

UPDATE!

Since it seems unlikely that we will meet our funding goal of $350,000 for this campaign, we have come up with a "next-steps" plan, which you can read about in Update #10.

IF WE DO NOT MEET OUR FUNDING GOALS (which seems likely) - all of our $5 or greater backers will immediately receive the exclusive HD wallpaper created by Matt Frank for this project, and will get immediate access to the Kaiju Combat design forums, where we will be discussing and voting on our first batch of fan-created monsters.

IF OUR GOAL IS NOT MET, YOU KEEP YOUR PLEDGE. This is how Kickstarter works - no money is transferred unless we meet our goal. Since we do not currently expect to meet our goal (this time) your pledge is cost-free way to show support and get in on the ground floor!

If you are interested in the $500 donation level to submit your own original monster, please check out the FAQ below.

WHO IS DEVELOPING KAIJU COMBAT?

We've got a world-class team of professionals to make Kaiju Combat the best game it can possibly be. But the most important contributions to the game will be made by direct design discussions between the dev team and our contributors!

The dev team includes:

Simon Strange - Owner of Sunstone Games, LLC. and writer of snappy Kickstarter pitch text, Simon is a 15-year veteran of the video game industry with nearly 20 console titles under his belt. He lectures and publishes articles on modern design techniques, and blogs at StrangeDesign.

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal - The lead guitarist for Guns N' Roses! A lifelong kaiju fan, Ron's music is sure to make Kaiju Combat rock even harder! For a full list of his accomplishments, we refer you to his official site.

Matt Frank - Kaiju Artist extraordinaire, Matt Frank started at IDW comics with The Beast Wars Sourcebook and Transformers Animated: The Rise of Safeguard. You can follow him at deviant art and mattfrankart.com

Matt hit the big time (literally BIG!) with the smashing-success of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters, providing covers for the entire run of the series. Matt went on to co-write and draw the first issue of Godzilla: Legends, and provide covers for the new IDW Godzilla ongoing series.

Matt's also no stranger to games. He's worked extensively with Chaotic Moon Studios on iOS projects such as Age of Booty, contributing both in-game illustrations and conceptual work.

(Some original monster concepts Matt put together for Kaiju Combat)

Bob Eggleton - Bob is a Hugo award-winning fantasy/SF artist who works on both publishing projects and film concept work. You can see some of his work here. Godzilla fans will recognize Bob's work from comics, posters, and other famous illustrations stretching back at least 20 years!

Godzilla image by Bob Eggleton

Chris Mirjahangir - Photographer, film-maker, and Kaiju-obsessed fanatic, Chris spent seven years on staff at the world’s biggest Godzilla website, www.TohoKingdom.com. There, he worked with companies like Pipeworks, IDW, Atari, Heavy Melody, Foundation 9, Santa Cruz games, and Toy Vault. In 2007, via Toho Kingdom, Chris released the official soundtrack to the Wii/PS2 game Godzilla Unleashed as a Christmas gift for Godzilla fans worldwide.

In April 2011, Chris was handpicked by August Ragone to film and photograph original Godzilla film suit actor Haruo Nakajima. Photos from the visit appeared in the now legendary #256 issue of “Famous Monsters of Filmland”.
Chris is in charge of story, video, and continuity within Kaiju Combat. His directorial film debut: "Transcendence" is currently in post-production - check out the clips below! (see www.Transcendence-Movie.com for more!)

WHAT MONSTERS WILL BE FEATURED IN KAIJU COMBAT?

Kaiju Combat is a framework upon which we hope to build several stand-alone games. Kaiju Combat is an independent brand, but it has been developed with the intent to integrate with established franchises. That sounds like legalese - so let's put it plainly: Kaiju Combat is intended to be the Lego of giant monster fighting games by supporting multiple Kaiju brands simultaneously. Lego can sell a Batman Lego kit, and at the same time be working on a Star Wars Lego, an Indiana Jones Lego kit, and a generic Lego kit. Supporting multiple franchises is a strength of the Lego brand.

In the same way, we hope to release Kaiju Combat: Godzilla, Kaiju Combat: Gamera, Kaiju Combat: Ultraman - and many others as stand-alone products which allow Kaiju fans to play all of their favorite monsters, but without tying our technology or our brand down to just one franchise. And just like Lego - once you've bought those products you can change the pieces around as you see fit!

UPDATE! We are pleased to announce that we have made a strategic partnership with the makers of Kaijuland! They are making it possible for us to release a FREE stand-alone Kaiju Combat game featuring four of their original monsters! This "Kaijuland Combat" game will always remain free as a sort of "Kaiju Combat Lite" for players to experience before they purchase one of the full-featured paid releases.

WILL THERE BE ORIGINAL MONSTERS IN KAIJU COMBAT?

Yes, we absolutely have plans to include original monsters in Kaiju Combat. In fact, contributors who donate $500 or more get to work directly with our creative team to put their own monster concepts into the game! (Matt & Simon will work with you directly to make sure that your monster fits the necessary parameters of scale, complexity, and good taste. See the FAQ below for more details.)

WAIT - ISN'T THIS A GODZILLA GAME?

That's a very good question - we would all love to work with the Godzilla franchise again, and that is absolutely something we envision ourselves doing with Kaiju Combat in the Very Near Future. However, we wanted to make sure that we retained creative and financial control of the Kaiju Combat brand, so that we could iterate and expand on the game - pushing out new stand-alone releases on our own schedule.

Once our funding is complete, our very first design discussion with our contributors will be about how to best spend our budget - how much do we put towards licensing, and how much towards original content? If going after the Godzilla license for our first release is what our contributors want - then that is exactly what we'll do.

THE FANS ARE PART OF THE DESIGN TEAM?

Yes, absolutely! All contributors who pledge $5 or more will get access to our Kaiju Combat design forums, where the team will be actively engaged in design discussions. We'll be pushing out concept art, character renders, spreadsheet data - everything we produce will be transparently available for people to pour over and comment on.

If you contribute at a higher level, we'll even give you access to in-progress builds on a bi-monthly or even weekly basis! This is the sort of behind-the-scenes view that consumers never get to see. It can be messy- but if you want to get in there, we trust you to participate in the process with us.

WHAT'S WRONG WITH VIDEO GAMES NOW?

Obviously we all love video games - but games are usually made by putting a development studio into debt with an investor company. That company fronts the money, and then expects the development studio to pay it back.

The problem with that arrangement is that the goals of a development studio, the players, and the investors are mis-aligned. Development studios & players want good games, while the investors are looking for maximum profit. If there is more profit to be had by rushing a game, or sacrificing quality, then the investor makes that happen.

OK, SO HOW DO YOU FIX THAT?

With Kickstarter's help! Kickstarter allows development studios (us) to be funded directly by the players (you!). Since players and dev studios want the same thing - for games to be awesome and high-quality - everyone is on the same side. There is no conflict of interest. To prove that, we're making our development process as transparent as possible, and inviting all our backers to join in the design discussion. That's something you'll never see on a project funded by traditional methods.

DO YOU HAVE STRETCH GOALS IN CASE YOU MAKE EXTRA $$?

What an excellent question! We have grand plans for Kaiju Combat that extend well beyond our initial release. Every penny of profit we make on Kaiju Combat goes right back into the studio - to fund new licenses, new monsters, new stories, new game modes, etc. If our pledges on this Kickstarter campaign exceed $350,000, that means we can start putting some of these future plans into the initial release! For example:

+$100,000($450,000 total) - We have enough money to acquire the Toho license, and our first release contains 30 film-perfect monsters.

+$150,000($900,000 total) - Kaiju Cinema mode! In addition to just playing the game, we give you all the in-game tools you need to shoot and share Kaiju videos for all your fandom needs. Control the camera, NPCs, pause and adjust time, and save individual video clips.

+$100,000($1,000,000 total) - Custom single-player editor! Create and share your own single-player story, including uploads of cut-scene images and videos. Recreate classic stories, make a bizarre amalgamation, or just challenge your friends with the hardest scenarios you can imagine!

Of course, we can't guarantee an order for including specific features, because our contributors get a say in how we spend our money. So if the majority of contributors want to see us spend $75,000 on a cinematic intro before we put $100,000 into buying a classic IP - that's how we'll do it!

WHAT THE HECK ARE "ASYMMETRICAL MONSTERS?"

Asymmetrical balance means that characters emphasize unique traits, rather than giving all characters similar traits. Consider a fast Bruce Lee-type vs. a Wrestler. As you add more and more characters, giving each one a unique strength which balances against all other characters becomes increasingly complex.

The rewards for success, however, are huge. A properly-balanced asymmetrical fighting game means that the best way to play character X is different for each opponent. You can't simply practice a few standard combos and expect to do well against a variety of opponents - you need to be flexible and learn from your mistakes. That makes the combats more strategic and less about twitchy reflexes.

WHEN WILL KAIJU COMBAT BE RELEASED?

Our ideal schedule would have an initial release in the spring of 2013, and 3 or 4 releases a year for at least two years after that, depending on the size of each release. Obviously, our contributors will have a lot of influence here on the size & frequency of new releases.

The Spigot engine requires DX9, and windows XP or better. If your machine was built after 2003, you're probably able to play it. You will need a gamepad to play it properly - any USB gamepad (like Xbox360 or PS3 controllers) works fine.

An excellent (and hard) question! We would love to let people play however they want - we're not platform snobs. In-progress builds will only be available on PC, for technical reasons, but it should be possible to let people redeem their free copies via console, if they wish. We will have to pay Microsoft/Sony for those copies - which means less $$ for development. But we trust our backers to help us see that all funds raised are put to efficient use.

First, we want to talk about rights. We want you to retain rights to your original monster concept as much as possible - but for legal reasons we will need you to assign some limited rights to Sunstone Games, LLC. Specifically we will need to have the right to use your character in our games, and we will need to have the right to use that character in our promotional materials.

Second - we are at this time accepting a limited number of $500 donations directly through Paypal to create original monsters immediately. This money is being used to fund additional videos and website development. We are keeping this to a minimum, because we prefer to keep our funding as transparent as possible, through sources like Kickstarter. If you would like to inquire, please us the blue "Ask a question" button below to write to us directly.

Rewards

You selected

$1 reward

12 backers

BABY KAIJU - Every dollar counts! Thank you for contributing!

Estimated delivery:Jul 2013

You selected

$5 reward

38 backers

YOUNG KAIJU - You are officially a member of the design team! Everyone who contributes $5 or more will receive a login for the community design forums, where daily discussions will directly influence Kaiju Combat's feature set.

Estimated delivery:Jul 2013

You selected

$20 reward

98 backers

JUNIOR KAIJU - In addition to a design team login, you are eligible for a free copy of Kaiju Combat upon release. Get your battle on!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$30 reward

9 backers

ARTIST KAIJU - In addition to a design team login & one free copy of Kaiju Combat upon release, you get an exclusive high-resolution wallpaper by Matt Frank!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$35 reward

13 backers
Limited (287 left of 300)

KAIJULAND FAN - Get a copy of the KAIJULAND: ORIGINS comic, and a set of trading cards! You still get the design login, free copy of Kaiju Combat, and the HD wallpaper too!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$40 reward

7 backers

TEEN KAIJU - In addition to a design team login, get a limited-run Kaiju Combat T-shirt, with original artwork by Matt Frank!

Estimated delivery:Sep 2012

You selected

$40 reward

3 backers

TWIN KAIJU - Get a design team login, the wallpaper, and TWO copies of Kaiju Combat upon release! Now your lazy friend has no excuse!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$60 reward

2 backers

BIG KAIJU - Get your design team login, a free copy of the game upon release, the Kaiju Combat wallpaper AND the Kaiju Combat T-shirt.

Estimated delivery:Sep 2012

You selected

$75 reward

33 backers

BATTLE KAIJU - A free copy of all future Kaiju Combat releases!

Get a design team login, plus a free copy of EVERY Kaiju Combat release! Every new monster, environment, game mode, or anything else created as part of the Kaiju Combat project - you get them all for free!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$100 reward

14 backers
Limited (11 left of 25)

CONTROLLER KAIJU - Have the control you need! Get a copy of EVERY Kaiju Combat game released, plus a design team login, the HD wallpaper, PLUS a brand-new Logitech® F710 Wireless Gamepad to crush the competition with! Made possibly by the Kaiju-lovers at Logitech® - (limit of 25)

Estimated delivery:Sep 2012

You selected

$115 reward

6 backers

FANCY BATTLE KAIJU! - By popular request! Get a design login, the wallpaper, the T-shirt, and a copy of every Kaiju Combat release ever! Who says fighters can't be (art) lovers?

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$120 reward

11 backers

ALPHA KAIJU - Get access to the alpha! Get a design team login, a free copy of every release, AND bi-monthly review copies of the game as we build it. This gives you a first-hand look at the state of Kaiju Combat every 2 months, to help inform your design opinions!

Estimated delivery:Nov 2012

You selected

$250 reward

4 backers
Limited (21 left of 25)

SENIOR KAIJU - Become a part of the game! Have your likeness, voice, or some other self-representation added to the single-player story. (Limited of 25). You also get everything from the $120 level!

Estimated delivery:Jun 2013

You selected

$400 reward

1 backer

OVERLORD KAIJU - Weekly Playable Builds! Download weekly review copies of the game. You will have all the latest changes, updates and experiments every week. If you want to have your finger on the pulse of development, this is the closest you can get without moving to Oregon! You also get everything from the $120 level.

Estimated delivery:Nov 2012

You selected

$500 reward

19 backers
Limited (31 left of 50)

PROGENITOR KAIJU - Add your own monster! Submit your original monster concept to our creative team, who will work closely with you to create a professional design document and concept piece for your monster. Once finished, your monster is eligible to become fully playable fighting characters in a future Kaiju Combat game! Plus you get everything from the $120 level! (Limit of 50)

Estimated delivery:Nov 2012

You selected

$1,000 reward

1 backer

KAISER KAIJU - Win the shirt off our backs! The team will sign and personalize one of Matt's limited-run T-shirts just for you! We'll also send you a large print of a monster concept painting - suitable for framing. You also get everything from the $120 level!

Estimated delivery:Sep 2012

You selected

$5,000 reward

1 backer
Limited (9 left of 10)

GRAND KING KAIJU - Come spend a day with the team at the Sunstone Games offices, play the latest builds, offer feedback & praise in person, and get free food & lodging! You also get everything from the $120 level! Mere mortals tremble at your visage! (travel expenses not covered) (limit of 10)

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

Funding period

Jul 2, 2012 - Aug 2, 2012
(30 days)

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